Unpacking the Suitable Enemy: Predictors of attitudes toward immigration and immigrants

• In Event: 2129 - Section on Comparative-Historical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 8. Race, Ethnicity, and Migration

Abstract

This paper asks two research questions. First, what are the variables that shape attitudes towards immigration and immigrants? Second, why did voters from a congressional district in the border region with Mexico support anti-immigrant messaging in the 2016 and 2018 elections? The research tests the group threat, social identity, and contact theory hypotheses using data from the General Social Survey and the American Community Survey for California’s 42nd Congressional District. Two interesting findings emerge from the analysis. Americans as a whole have become more embracing of immigrants even as government policy has hardened. Social identity and party affiliation continue are accurate predictors of attitudes toward immigration and immigrants.

Author

• Luis F. Nuño, California State University, Los Angeles